Marrakai
Supposition corner...if the action on yours is purple it is probably made by Webley and Scott. They didn't use a forging for the receiver as did Greeners, it was a casting and behaved differently with the bluing used. Purple ones are quite common.
Check out the Proof date codes, the price of a pint says it's a later model from after the late 60's.
A proper rust blue utilising a heavy chloride formula produces a permanent lustrous black. You can modify soldering solution to do the job (zinc chloride, ammonium chloride and hydrochloric acid)
The cased finish was standard and stood alongside the black; you paid your money and took your choice. I've owned both, and prefer the cased ones but they are hard to find in A.1. nick. I took delivery of a 34" one in beautiful aesthetic order, clean as a whistle, but the action was buggered up (right off the Webley production line) and couldn't be put to rights.
The one Dig got me was a purple 'un. The action wanted a bit of fiddling to get it right, but it's fine now. I have my eye on a minty Mk1, an real sleeper. The seller is a bit coy so I'll be applying the electrodes when he comes back from his hols. Assuming I get it, the Purple People Eater will be on it's way.
As to restocking that's my final move when I get the absolutely perfect gun (mechanically and aesthetically) I'm after. As Blackadder says "I have a cunning plan"; or rather two. The first is to fit what amounts to a Monte Carlo top piece to the existing woodwork. I feel i could do that myself; I've a bit of nice walnut from an old brummie hammer gun wreck. Second is to fit a Greener "Rational" stock; I need to reduce the factory standard drop but at the same time maintain the geometry of the underlever catch housing. A roach belly "Rational" would do that nicely.
tw There is a site where the reloading info is available; If I can find it I'll post it here.
The original bullet weight was (from memory) 410 grains, a right man stopper. The 24th Regt. opened aimed volley fire at 500 yards and the poor blacks went down like ninepins.
Lt. Chard's report (I have a facimile copy of his hand written original) states "...I noticed Private Dunbar (24th) make some splendid shooting, seven or eight Zulus falling on the ledge of rocks in the Oskarsberg to as many consecutive shots by him". Those rocks are about 250-300 yards from the mission and maybe 150 feet above it. Dunbar also shot dead the Zulu "induna" or military chief early on in the battle knocking him off a captured horse. I suspect that was a critical loss, they didn't seem to be up to their normal level of battle savvy after that. Their political leader Dabulamanzi, also on a horse took bloody good care not to be in the battle line after that.
Obsessed? Whom, moi?
Eug
